'Splode!

[hwango]

Ah, now I remember what I was going to mention yesterday. It's Splody Season. We have bunches of Impatiens every year, which are plants that make little very simple flowers that are not wildly impressive, but kind of pretty in large numbers. The best part about the plant, I think, is the exploding seed pods. This week and last week seem to be the ones in which the most seed pods really swelled up. The pods are fascinating. The segments press against each other tighter and tighter as they swell up. Once they're big enough, and the seeds are "ripe," it takes only a tiny bit of pressure to split one of the seams. The seeds spray out with a surprising amount of force, and the empty pod curls up into a little cylinder. I loved popping them as a kid, and still find it fun to this day. It's just such a bizarre and surprisingly dynamic method for the plant to spread its seeds. They pop on their own eventually, but I'm not bored enough to sit watching the plants for hours at a time just to see the pods explode by themselves.